


Love As A Second Language

by lit_chick08



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Brother-Brother Relationship, Het and Slash, Love Triangle, Multi, Post-Season 2, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love, Sibling Rivalry, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:13:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit_chick08/pseuds/lit_chick08
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the message gets lost in translation, but the message has always been the same: <i>I love you, I need you, Come back</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Love As A Second Language

They are in bed one morning, her back sealed tightly against his chest, when Elena asks him why he puts up with Damon.

"It's not so much a question of 'putting up' with Damon as it is 'coming to terms' with him."

"I don't get it," Elena admits, her fingers absently stroking the length of his forearm. "I just don't get how the two of you are even related."

"He wasn't always like this."

* * *

When he was thirteen, Damon came back from university with a book. He kept it hidden in his belongings, and Stefan only knew it existed because he had glimpsed Damon showing it to George Lockwood. Though Stefan was not usually the type of boy who snooped, he couldn't resist hunting for it one afternoon, desperate to see what his big brother was hiding.

"What the hell are you doing?" Damon asked, startling Stefan into dropping the pile of books he had been sifting through.

He began to stammer out an excuse before admitting what he was doing, preparing for the blow he expected Damon to deliver. Given their seven year age gap, things rarely got physical between them, but Stefan was fairly certain rifling through Damon's possessions would earn him a beating.

Instead Damon laughed, reaching behind the headboard of his bed and coming back with the book in question. He gestured for Stefan to close the door before flopping down onto his bed.

"If you tell anyone I showed this to you, I will beat you so hard, you'll wish Father took the switch to you," Damon warned as Stefan joined him on the bed.

"I won't," Stefan swore.

Damon cracked the cover, and, at first, Stefan was confused. There were pictures on every page, like a children's book, but it took only a moment for Stefan to realize all of the people were naked and contorted into a variety of positions.

"It is a gentleman's book," Damon explained. "It teaches a man how to lie with a woman."

Stefan felt his cheeks burn brightly as Damon chuckled, but he could not help but continue to flick through the pages.

"You...You do this with women?"

Damon grinned. "Only if you're very, _very_ lucky."

* * *

There is a spark between Damon and Elena. 

Stefan sees it every time they are together. It does not matter whether his girlfriend is declaring she hates him or declaring they should help him; Stefan can always feel the electricity between them.

And the truly demented thing is, he wouldn't _mind_ sharing Elena with his brother. Defying all odds, when they were with Katherine, he and Damon had never been closer. If things had gone how Katherine had planned, if the three of them would've spent eternity together, Stefan would not have minded at all.

But Damon had only wanted Katherine.

So Stefan gets in his face and declares history will not be repeating itself when it comes to Elena.

* * *

The first time Katherine proposed the three of them spend the night together, Stefan had been terrified.

Unlike the boys he had gone to school with, Stefan had never taken liberties with a girl at a party or gone to the brothel in Grove Hill; Katherine was the only woman he had ever lied with and, as such, he usually allowed her to set the pace, to direct him in how best to pleasure her.

Damon had been with many women; Stefan knew this both from gossip around town and his brother's own accounts. And while Stefan had never felt a huge amount of competition with his brother, he also did not want to embarrass himself in front of Damon, especially when it came to Katherine.

Katherine had declared they would use Stefan's bedroom, which was the farthest from Giuseppe's room. As Stefan waited on the bed in his underwear, he nearly leaped out of his skin when Damon entered, no hint of nervousness on his face.

"You look like you're going to vomit," Damon declared.

Stefan said nothing, rubbing at his face, and he felt the bed depress as Damon sat beside him, clapping a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry. I'll talk you through it."

* * *

Life is never more difficult for him than after Damon killed Jeremy.

He has seen the progress Damon has made towards humanity, to returning to the brother he loved so much; he sees the comfort with which Damon and Elena interact now, witnesses the shorthand which exists between them now. And Stefan knows it should make him feel better, knowing the two most important people in his life are getting along, but he's afraid.

Elena is not Katherine. She will never want two brothers, to be the tie which binds them; if Elena decides she is in love with Damon, she will never declare her intention to love them both because that is not who Elena is.

But having Elena _hate_ Damon, watching Damon sink further and further into self-loathing...That's even worse.

"She'll forgive you," he says one night as Damon drinks in front of the fire.

"No, she won't."

"Why do you say that?"

Damon scoffs and glares. "Because I spend six days out of every seven wanting to put a stake in you myself, but I'd still never forgive anyone that did to you what I did to Jeremy."

And then Damon threw his sifter at his head, which Stefan supposes is the closest Damon can get to admitting he loves him too.

* * *

During World War Two, he went on a bender in Mexico. There was an almost limitless supply of beautiful girls with dark hair and eyes, and that had always been Stefan's preferred type.

At a little village outside Guadalajara, a group of hunters injected him with vervain and set fire to a house. Stefan was prepared to die when suddenly Damon had been there, dragging him into the desert. When Stefan was aware of his surroundings again, he was chained up in a basement in Texas, his ring in Damon's pocket.

"What - "

"Fucking sloppy, little brother," Damon spat, dropping a still-warm body of a coyote at his feet.

He only stayed until Lexi got there and then Stefan didn't see him again for eleven years.

* * *

The night Elijah kills Klaus, Stefan prays he'll die too. He has lost count of how many bodies stand between who he was and who he is now, but Stefan fears his soul has been irreparably lost in his nine months with Klaus.

Instead Bonnie does something which knocks him unconscious. When he wakes up, he is in the basement of the boardinghouse, and he can hear Damon and Elena whispering outside the door.

"What if he's never _our_ Stefan again?" Elena asks, a tremble in her voice.

"This has happened before," Damon replies in a voice Stefan recognizes from his childhood. "He always bounces back."

"Promise?"

Damon chuckles softly. "I promise."

Stefan falls asleep to the lilting rhythm of their voices.

* * *

The closest they ever got to reconciliation was in the 90s. 

They met up by chance in Seattle; Lexi had been spending time on the West Coast and Stefan went out to visit her. He went to a club to listen to a band he liked when he spotted Damon near the stage draped around a woman who bore more than a passing resemblance to Katherine. 

When their eyes met through the throng of bodies, Damon quirked an eyebrow before bringing the girl over to meet him.

"Kayla, meet my brother Stefan."

She was nineteen, a little drunk, definitely stoned. Stefan was never quite sure if Damon used compulsion on her, but it took little to no convincing to get her to accompany them back to Damon's hotel room.

Afterward, when they lied on opposite sides of the sleeping, satiated girl, Damon observed, "Almost forgot how much fun this used to be."

Stefan laughed even as the guilt began to tickle around the edges of his conscience. "We were always a good team."

Damon lolled his head to face him, but his eyes fell on the cascade of dark hair hiding Kayla's face, on the exposed skin which was too light and too freckled to ever bear comparison to the last girl they had shared.

"God, she was beautiful, wasn't she?"

Stefan knew he wasn't talking about the girl between them. "Gorgeous."

In the morning, Stefan woke up to find the girl drained and Damon gone.

* * *

When he asks Damon what happened between he and Elena while Klaus was holding him captive, Damon doesn’t try to evade or joke; instead, in the most forthright conversation they have had in 145 years, Damon lists what happened very clearly.

Stefan isn’t sure he is more hurt that Elena slept with his brother or that he was not there to participate.

“If you need to lose your shit, I’d prefer you take it out on me,” Damon states. “She’s tore up enough from the guilt of it; if you lay into her, you’ll push her right over the edge.”

Stefan shakes his head. “You think I shouldn’t be angry?”

“I think you should understand that we didn’t know if we were ever going to see you again and…”

“And you love her,” Stefan finishes.

Damon doesn’t bother fighting it; he just nods.

They sit in silence for a beat before Stefan ventures, “And you just let her come back to me, didn’t even fight?”

Damon meets his gaze steadily, the pain sharp in his bright blue eyes. “I was only the understudy.”

Stefan recognizes the frustration and self-loathing in his brother’s expression and a new fear clutches at his heart. “Are you going to leave?”

“Hadn’t planned on it, not yet at least.”

“Good.” Taking a swallow of his bourbon, he adds, “I don’t like it when you’re not around.”

Damon laughs mirthlessly. “Tell me about it.”

* * *

The year before he came back to Mystic Falls, Lexi tried desperately to dissuade him.

"Why are you such a masochist?" she asked rhetorically as they walked the streets of Manhattan at four in the morning.

"It's my home."

"No, it's the scene of the crime! Every time you go back there, you end up getting crazy depressed and, the thing you know, I'm tracking your ass through the Amazon because you decided to go on a blood bender."

"It's only for a few days, Lex, just to see Zach and drop off some things."

Lexi sighed dramatically. "You know...if you want to see Damon, you could just call him like a normal person."

"I don't want to see Damon," he objected immediately.

His best friend scoffed. “Now that’s just a bold-faced lie. You _always_ want to see Damon, no matter how badly he’s fucked you over the last time you saw him.”

“You don’t know him the way I do.”

“I know him well enough to know you don’t deserve what he puts you through. Honestly, it’s not like it would be the worst thing in the world if someone put a stake – “

“Lexi.”

His voice was firm and sharp, a tone he rarely took with his friend, and Lexi instantly chastened, mouthing an apology.

Stefan had incredibly complicated feelings for his brother, but he still didn’t want to imagine what it would be like if Damon was never available ever again.

* * * 

He has been back for a few months, the sharp cravings which threatened to unravel him a thing of the past, when he, Damon, and Elena get riproaringly drunk at Caroline's 18th birthday party.

They are at the Grill and everyone is hammered, the music making the entire place vibrate, and Stefan isn't even aware of just how gone he is until Caroline forces him to do a shot of tequila and it nearly makes him puke. Glancing around for Elena, he finds her on the dance floor, Damon grinding in a ridiculous parody of some of the other dancers behind her, and she is laughing hysterically. He cuts through the crowd and comes to a stop in front of her, his hands falling instinctively to her hips.

"Hey," he breathes against her forehead as she presses her breasts against his chest and executes a roll of her body he recognizes from their horizontal times together.

She wraps an arm around his neck while reaching back and catching Damon's neck as well. "My boys," she sighs happily, rolling her hips between with them languidly.

Stefan finds Damon's gaze easily, his brother's thoughts clearly the same as his own.

* * *

When he pulled Elena Gilbert out of the submerged SUV, Stefan felt like the world fell away as he stared into her familiar face.

It was easy enough to discern whether or not she was Katherine, but it was far less easy to come to terms with the complex swirl of emotions which forced their way to the forefront of his brain, back with a vengeance.

She was so very beautiful, the girl with his first lover’s face, but she lacked the same selfish, impatient air. The stranger with her face was everything Stefan had wished Katherine to be.

He picked up the phone to locate Damon, to tell him everything, when he realized the man Damon had become would ruin someone as fresh as Elena Gilbert.

Stefan put down the phone, resolute in his desire to keep Damon from turning Elena into another Katherine.

* * *

He and Damon bring up the idea to her a few days after Caroline’s party. When Stefan admits he knows what happened between her and Damon, Elena immediately flushes with shame and begins to apologize, but Stefan cuts in, assuring her he is not angry. And then, as Damon describes what exactly they’re proposing, Elena turns a brilliant shade of crimson which has nothing to do with guilt.

She says she needs time to think, stuttering and stammering in a way which would be comical if Stefan wasn’t suddenly afraid she was going to say no.

“She won’t,” Damon assures him later as they drink in the living room.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because she doesn’t want to choose anymore than we want her to choose.”

Sometimes Stefan suspects Damon understands Elena far better than he does.

Then again, Stefan suspects Damon understands _him_ far better than Elena does.

No one ever gives his brother enough credit.

* * *

The night Damon killed Coach Tanner, Stefan woke up to the sound of objects breaking downstairs. Stefan rose and intercepted Zach on the stairs, assuring him he would take care of it. He hurried down to the library to find Damon throwing books against the walls, breaking picture frames and knickknacks which have belonged to their other family members. 

“Damon – “

His brother whirled around, and Stefan could instantly tell he was completely inebriated. “You’re such a fucking _coward_!” 

Rolling his eyes, used to the accusations, Stefan sighed, “Look, can we do this – “

“How long after you saw her for the first time did you decide she was going to be yours? A second? A minute? Did you wait a whole hour before you decided to cut me out of the equation entirely?”

Stefan blinked in confusion, unable to follow his brother’s drunken logic. “Damon, Katherine was – “

“I’m not talking about Katherine!” he screamed, throwing a copy of The Bible with enough force and speed Stefan was unable to dodge it, the text connecting hard with Stefan’s hip.

Wincing, Stefan said, “Elena isn’t Katherine.”

“No fucking shit, Stefan! She’s _not_ Katherine! She’s _nothing_ like Katherine!”

“Exactly! She’s nothing like Katherine, and you loved Katherine! She just has the same face, Damon, that’s all!”

Eyes narrowing, stepping closer, muscles coiled like a cobra ready to spring, Damon drawled, “And you _deserve_ the girl who looks like Katherine but is nothing like her, right? You _deserve_ to have the good one while I get stuck with the evil vampire you hate, right?”

“Katherine’s dead, Damon. This has nothing to do with deserving anything.”

“Right, because we both know if it comes down to what you _deserve_ , it sure as hell isn’t to get to ride off into the sunset with the dream girl.”

Stefan struggled not to flinch at the allusion to how they had ended up where they were. “Damon – “

“Fuck you, brother,” Damon snapped, throwing back his drink before stalking out the front door.

Stefan never did get back to sleep that night.

* * *

Elena shows up on a Sunday afternoon in June in a tiny pair of cotton shorts and a tank top, her long, dark hair gathered into a ponytail at the crown of her head. Neither Stefan nor Damon has seen her since their proposal, having mutually decided to give her time to make her decision, and Stefan suddenly feels like the anxious seventeen-year-old boy he had been the very first time.

“Okay,” is all she says, pulling her lower lip between her teeth, nervously shifting her weight back and forth.

They end up in Damon’s room, and Elena kneels in the center of his mattress, sitting back on her heels as he and Damon remain standing. Stefan can feel the uncertainty and fear rolling off Elena, and he finds himself offering her an out, assuring her she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do, and Elena blushes, ducking her face.

“It’s not that I don’t _want_ to. I just…I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Both he and Damon chuckle, and Stefan watched as Damon slinks across the bed with a feline fluidity he possessed even as a human. Their mouths meet easily, Damon deepening the kiss even as he pulled her tank top up, and, for a moment, Stefan simply watches, remembering when this process used to take much more time, when it involved lines of buttons, corset laces, and yards upon yards of fabric. Damon has Elena nude so quickly, Stefan almost misses the complicated garments of his youth and the almost unbearable anticipation removing one would build.

“Stefan,” he hears Elena gasp as Damon begins to descend her body, his tongue tracing the lines Stefan is familiar with, and it is enough to shake Stefan from his stupor.

He sheds his clothing quickly before joining them on the bed, grasping Elena’s hand just as Damon’s begins to nibble on the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Part of him wants to watch his brother work, having always enjoyed witnessing the way his ordinarily impatient brother could spend hours ruthlessly building pleasure, but Elena is awkwardly trying to tug him down to kiss her as she also attempts to force Damon to stop teasing.

He swallows Elena’s moans as he absently palms her breast, strumming her nipple with his thumb. She is already dewy with sweat, the combination of arousal and summer heat, and Stefan licks salt from her neck. Her kisses are rougher than they used to be, and Stefan finds himself responding, growling when she tugs at his lower lip with her teeth; it is a move which he knows she learned from Damon.

Damon is still denying Elena what she wants, tracing the shape of her with his fingertips without ever applying pressure, exhaling soft bursts of air which tickle but do not satisfy, and Elena’s hips are churning desperately as she begs; Damon chuckles but does not comply, and Stefan slides his fingers into Damon’s hair, forcefully directing his attention to where their girl wants it.

Damon’s gaze flicks up to his, his blue eyes almost cerulean with passion, before obediently bowing his head, licking a long stripe up the center of her. Elena cries out sharply in relief, babbling a stream of thanks and blasphemies, and Stefan reaches down, pulling her left leg up, opening her mouth fully. Stefan watches as Damon eases two fingers inside of her, crooking them up to stroke her inner walls, and, as Elena begins to keen, Damon seals his mouth over her clit, his tongue lashing the bud with constant pressure.

Elena is never more beautiful than when she comes apart; Stefan has always believed this, and it is a belief which is only reinforced as she claws at both of them, her entire body flushed pink, her voice cracking as her body trembled. When Damon pulls away, Stefan sees she is still shaking, and he instantly wraps his arms around her, trying to soothe her.

“Oh god,” she whimpers against his throat, her fingers grasping at his back. “God, oh god, Damon, god.”

Damon smirks as he joins them at the head of the bed, his lips shiny with her release, and Stefan did not realize he was planning on kissing his brother until he is licking the taste of Elena from his mouth. Damon chuckles deep in his chest, pushing his tongue into Stefan’s mouth, and Stefan forgets for a moment anything other than Damon’s mouth against his.

And then he feels Elena squirm against his chest, and Stefan pulls away to find Elena’s eyes wide, pupils still blown, attention fully fixed on he and Damon.

“Elena,” he begins, unsure how he is going to finish the sentence, but Elena shakes her head, pulling him atop her.

“Inside please,” she mewls, arching her back in supplication, and Stefan has no choice but to agree.

She is positively soaked from Damon’s ministrations, and he slides in easily, shuddering in pleasure as she clenches tightly around him. For a moment Stefan closes his eyes, fighting to control himself, to stop from pounding into her like a drunken teenager, and, when he opens his eyes, he finds that Damon has undressed and is stroking himself almost casually from his place beside Elena.

“What are you waiting for, brother?” Damon teases, his smile positively predatory as his thumb circles the head of his erection. “Fuck her.”

Stefan pulls back only to thrust in hard, his rhythm fast but even; Elena moans when he sits back on his heels, pulling her hips with him, and she cries out sharply as every thrust brushes against her g-spot. When Stefan feels himself approaching the edge, he reaches down to stroke her; Elena shakes her head, smacking his hand away.

“Too much!” she gasps, her arms up above her head, bracing herself against the headboard. “God, Stefan!”

He comes so hard, he is almost certain he blacks out for a moment. When his brain has begun to function again, he is lying between Elena’s breasts, both of them gasping for air, and it takes everything Stefan has not to sink his teeth into the soft curve, especially with the blood shimmering beneath her skin. As if sensing this, Damon rolls him off of her, and Stefan resists the urge to thank his brother.

Elena’s eyes drift shut, clearly exhausted, and Damon makes a passing comment about the limits of mortality, but Stefan is more focused on the hardness pressing into his hip.

Katherine had liked to watch them with each other. That very first night, she had encouraged Damon to wrap his hand around Stefan and pump him to completion while she rode her own fingers; after that, it had become almost routine. It was never discussed outside of the room with Katherine, but Stefan had liked it, touching and being touched by his brother.

He knew it was the worst of sins, so he never admitted it out loud.

It didn’t make it any less true.

And so, while Damon whispers deliciously depraved suggestions for what they can do next with Elena, Stefan can only think about how sweet it used to be to hear Damon murmur his name in passion.

As he slips his hand around Damon’s dick, his brother stops speaking; when he begins to stroke, Damon shivers, settling into the bed, and Stefan knows he is not going to protest, not going to push him away the way he had in Seattle all those years ago. Stefan moves, carefully kneeling between Damon’s thighs, and works him the way he knows Damon likes.

“Yeah,” Damon hisses when Stefan reaches down to cradle his balls, pitching his hips up, and Stefan smiles at the reaction.

When his tongue circles the head of Damon’s cock, Damon moans, loud and uninhibited, and Stefan wants to do whatever it takes to keep him making that sound. He descends slowly, one hand wrapping firmly around the base as he tries to take in as much of Damon as he can. It has been years since he has done this and even longer still since he has done this with Damon; Stefan feels an irrational stab of nervousness that Damon will want him to stop.

And then Damon grabs his hair, demands he suck harder, and Stefan knows he is being completely ridiculous.

It isn’t until he hears Elena gasp that Stefan remembers she is there, and he pulls off quickly; there is a difference between kissing his brother and blowing his brother, and the last thing either he or Damon wants to do is completely freak her out and risk this ending just as it has begun.

“Don’t stop,” Damon grits through clenched teeth as he pulls Elena against his side, one hand sliding between Elena’s thighs.

Stefan hesitates, caught between what Damon wants and what he thinks Elena wants. It is not until his eyes lock with Elena’s and she smiles, that Stefan returns to sucking Damon to completion.

* * *

“You and I are a lot alike,” Klaus told him once after they had feasted on a sorority house in Alabama.

Stefan was curled up in the corner of the room, trying to wipe the blood from his face; he didn’t answer.

“Once upon a time,” Klaus continued, “I would’ve sacrificed anything for my brother as well. But, see, this is actually a blessing for you, Stefan.”

“Why’s that?” he growled, staring at the dried blood on his palms.

“Because now you’re spared from having to find out the hard way your brother would not do the same.” Squatting down beside him, Klaus stated, “Damon won’t come for you. He has your house, your girlfriend, your life; why would he possibly try to get you back to ruin all of that?”

Stefan tried not to telegraph how much Klaus’s words were his worst fear.

Clapping him on the back, Klaus got to his feet. “Don’t worry though. _We’re_ brothers now. And when we find Katherine, we’ll have a great deal of fun with her just like you and Damon did.”

He hated Katherine to the depths of his soul, but he prayed they never found her.

Not even Katherine deserved what Klaus had planned.

* * *

Stefan wakes up the next morning to the sound of the shower running and giggling.

Stumbling to his feet, Stefan steps into Damon’s bathroom to find Elena trying to wash her hair and Damon trying to coax her into shower sex; for a moment he stands and just watches the playful way Damon interacts with her before making his presence known.

“Thanks for waking me.”

Both Elena and Damon turn to face him, though Elena cannot fully open her eyes due to the shampoo currently running down her forehead. Nudging Damon to side with her hip, Elena reports, “I didn’t wake him either. He just seems to have a special talent for knowing when I’m naked and wet.”

“ _Anytime_ you’re with me, you’re naked and wet,” Damon counters with a cocky grin before raising an eyebrow in Stefan’s direction. “Well…are you going to pout or are you going to join us?”

Stefan smiles.

* * *

Later, as Elena takes her second shower of the day and makes them both swear they will not join her, Stefan lies beside his brother, who is dozing as the sun sets.

“Damon.”

“Hmm?” 

“Thank you for taking care of her while I was gone.”

Damon nods without opening his eyes. “Yeah, of course.”

“And thank you…for coming for me.”

This time Damon lifts his head, staring at him with incredulity. “Of course I came. You’re my brother, Stefan. And you would’ve come for me, right?”

“Of course I would.”

Settling back against the pillows, Damon added, “But if you ever doing anything to fucking martyr yourself ever again to save my ass, I’ll kill you myself.”

It is as close as Stefan is going to get to an admission of love from Damon for now, but it is enough.

As Elena slips into the bed, snuggling between them, Stefan and Damon both turn towards her, fitting their bodies against hers.

“I love you so much,” she sighs, slipping under the covers.

She doesn’t specify which one of them she is talking to.

Stefan isn’t sure it matters anymore.

All that matters is this: the two people he loves most in the world curled up beside him in the bed they share, Damon’s arm stretching across Elena’s body, his hand finding Stefan’s.

There are still innumerable barriers awaiting them: Elena’s mortality, Katherine, whatever else is lurking in the shadows, the mountain of issues which still exist between Damon and him.

But this…this is a start.

And all Stefan has ever wanted was a fresh start with his brother.


End file.
